A national group advocating deployment of electric cars and trucks, and charging stations to keep them going, chose Northern Colorado on Monday to launch its first, broad initiative to make that happen.

And, while electric vehicles provide plenty of environmental benefits, the drivers of "Drive Electric Northern Colorado" are not first and foremost "greenies."

"As an organization, we're focused on national security and energy independence," said Robbie Diamond, chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based Electrification Coalition.

"While electric vehicles are clean, and environmentally friendly, the important thing is that they represent the path to energy independence."

The cities of Loveland and Fort Collins are collaborating with Colorado State University on the regional project that Diamond said will serve as a national model for an electric vehicle revolution.

Outside the recently opened Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, where the launch event convened on a sunny, snowy Monday morning, large and small examples of how it's done were on display.

"We're exchanging gas tanks for batteries," said Ben Prochazka, director of strategic initiatives for the coalition.

A group of dignitaries, including the mayors of the two sponsoring cities, CSU officials and Electrification Coalition organizers, donned hard hats and posed with shovels for a symbolic groundbreaking for a fast-charging station that will be located at the museum.

Deployment of those charging stations throughout the region is key to making electric cars and trucks viable.

Driving Electric

Drive Electric Northern Colorado will push for adoption of electric vehicles by consumers and businesses throughout the region. More on the initiative can be found at DriveElectricNoCo.org. More on the Electrification Coalition, the group that is leading the charge, is at ElectrificationCoalition.org.

While electric cars can be charged with a standard 110-volt household connection overnight, the quick-charge stations can do the job in 20 minutes. That cuts down on what electric vehicle owners know as "range anxiety" -- the fear of running out of juice.

Bohemian Jump-Start

The Fort Collins-based Bohemian Foundation, headed by philanthropist Pat Stryker, has pledged to build two quick-charge stations in the region to serve all-electric vehicles.

Plug-in electric vehicles are a leap beyond more common hybrids -- the Toyota Prius being the best-known -- that burn gasoline. The pure electrics burn nothing, and emit nothing.

Diamond said his organization chose Northern Colorado to launch its initiative because of its demographics and politics.

"It's the right size. It's not too large," he said, explaining that the group's message to electrify could get overwhelmed in a large metro area. "Also, there's no regional ideology here," he said.

Diamond said his group's biggest foes were "inertia" -- the force that keeps people in gasoline-burning cars -- "and a few very large corporations," presumably those that produce and sell oil.

The Electrification Coalition has flexed some corporate muscle of its own, with CEOs of General Electric, Nissan Motors, FedEx and major utility providers among its principal organizers.